A Bad Night for Yuffie
by Ne'er-Do-Well
Summary: Master thief Yuffie tries to rob the wrong house. One-shot. Slight AU. Mild Sephiroth/Vincent.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or its characters._

_Character filter says Vincent and Sephiroth, but Vincent's appearances are very limited. Just don't want to give the wrong impression by saying Sephiroth and Yuffie, especially when there is some mild Sephiroth/Vincent..._

Oh, she was sneaky.

How skillfully she slipped through the trees. How stealthily she stepped through the shadows. Her feet glided over the grass soundlessly and her eyes brightened as her target came into view. A wicked grin broke out across her face. Certainly there was no other more devious than the Great Master Thief Yuffie.

She had set her eyes on the house the moment she had entered the neighborhood. It was a quaint, single-story building painted white and gray, and, most importantly, the security was incredibly lax. Open windows, unlocked doors, Yuffie was even willing to bet there wasn't even an alarm installed. Not that one would have stopped her amazing thieving skills, of course.

From what she had observed over the past few days, her only real obstacle would be the owners. There were two of them and they seldom left the house, which was why she decided to break in at night while they were sleeping. Yuffie knew she couldn't take another day of waiting and boredom. She never liked all the planning before a robbery, it was all about the action.

A quick dash across the lawn brought her to her decided point of entry, the bedroom window. After a glance around her surroundings to make sure the coast was clear, she hooked her fingers around the window's edge and slid it open quietly. The window pane grated against the metal of the frame shrilly and she tensed. No detectable movement from inside. Yuffie heaved a quiet sigh. She pushed her slender body through the opening carefully and when her feet touched the hard floor of the room she felt like doing a little victory dance. _But it's not over yet_, she thought with a grin. Oh no, the fun was just beginning.

It was dark, but from what she could see of the room it looked fairly large. A few feet directly in front of her spot by the window was the bed. Her shadow stretched over the two sleeping figures of the owners. The one closest had his back turned to her and his hair was splayed across the sheets, the strands white and shining in the meager moonlight. Past the naked curve of his shoulder was a dark head of messy hair, but she couldn't get a good look of the rest of the other man beyond that. Her eyes turned from the men and searched the nearby headstand for anything valuable. There was nothing except a small picture frame. She tried to ignore it but curiosity got the better of her, so her grabbed it and held the photo to the window.

If the sleeping-in-the-same-bed thing hadn't convinced her of their sexuality, then the picture washed all those doubts away. In the photo, the silver-haired man had one arm curled around the other's waist and the other arm halfway up his friend's shirt. He was smirking into the red-eyed male's black hair, but his intense gaze was focused on the camera. Everything about the man just screamed "frightening!" and "possessive!" and Yuffie was pretty sure he was not the kind of person she'd like to make angry. _Doesn't make him any less gorgeous though. _Her gaze trailed over his figure appreciatively before shifting to the black-haired man who looked perturbed at his friend's shameless groping. The green-eyed one was hot, but this one was definitely more her type. Not that it really matter with him being gay and all.

_Stealing from a couple of gay guys? Could this get any easier? _She held back a maniacal laugh and settled with a toothy grin.

Yuffie set the picture down and shuffled across the room, her wide gray eyes greedily seeking treasure. A glass case in a far corner of the room caught her attention and she bounded over to it. Her excitement grew as she drew closer.

"Ooo," she whispered. "Pretty knife."

She pressed her gloved hands against the glass and "ooh"'d some more. Yuffie really liked shiny things. It was one of the reasons she had gotten into stealing in the first place. She admired what she could see of the hilt's details: intricately carved dark wood embedded with obsidian. No doubt the dagger was worth quite the pretty penny. Her hands rubbed together eagerly.

"Funny, I don't remember opening the window."

Yuffie started and looked over her shoulder to see a dark figure at the doorway. A quick glance at the bed revealed the silver-haired occupant missing beneath the covers. When had he moved? She hadn't heard him move!

He lifted a hand to the switch and turned on the lights. Yuffie blinked furiously at the sudden change then gaped at the room around her. Forget bedroom, the place looked like a fucking armory. Swords, daggers, every blade imaginable. She could see everything from broadswords to tanto, rapiers to Chinese qiang, and kanata. A buttload of katana. Shelves with sets, wall mounts and metal everywhere. There were guns too: antique rifles, ornate pistols, modern handguns, shotguns. There was even something that looked like a grenade launcher and was too large to possibly be legal. The most impressive weapons, however, were on the wall opposite of her. There was a long outachi with a horribly, sharp-looking blade, and a little name plaque that said "Masamune". Directly beneath the outachi was a largest rifle Yuffie had ever seen. Its plaque said "Death Penalty".

_How did I not see this? _she wondered. Yuffie was definitely starting to feel a little nervous. If things got bad she could probably grab a sword off the wall to defend herself. How hard could swinging a sword be, right? She stole an anxious glance at the man by the wall. Muscular, not huge, but probably strong enough to wield a broadsword fairly easily. _Let's hope he's just a collector..._

As if reading her mind, the tall man took the nearest sword off the wall, an expensive-looking katana with a tsuba wrapped in red, and unsheathed it. Yuffie felt her spirits lift a little, _A katana! I could probably handle a katana. _Then, without taking his eyes off her, the silver-haired man twirled the sword deftly in his long fingers before releasing it completely. It landed easily in his left hand and with an effortless motion of his wrist, swung the blade around in a full circle before letting it lie limp at his side. Yuffie immediately went from hopeful to filled with dread.

"Eyeing the collection, were you?" His expression was impassive, but his green eyes shined with sadism. "You picked the wrong house to try to rob, little thief."

He shot across the length of the room without warning. Yuffie barely had time to leap out of the way, her eyes wide as she watched the katana's tip pass her bare midriff by scant millimeters. The instant she hit the floor she got to her feet and raced to the bedroom door. Her shoes pounded the hardwood furiously and she flew into the hallway. Her momentum carried her into a wall, crushing her shoulder painfully, but the adrenaline in her blood pushed her on. Her yellow shoes struggled for traction on the smooth floor as she sprinted down the hall. Yuffie spared a glance backward and found her attacker less than two feet behind her. His longer legs carrying him to her faster than she could escape.

Her next stepped missed and the would-be thief met the floor with a loud yell. Yuffie peeled her face off the dark cherry-brown wood and flipped herself over, ready to kick the long-haired male should he come near, but the moment she was on her back she found a barefoot digging into her stomach and a blade impaled in the floor so close to her neck she could feel it; cold and bloodthristy.

There was a smirk on the man's lips. His hair was pouring around his neck and shoulders as he inclined his head to look down at her, but she found it hard to admire when there was such a high chance of her dying.

"Poor, little thief didn't get very far." Green eyes glittered with cruel amusement. His hand curled around the blade's handle and he wrenched the katana free from the floor. Yuffie could hear her heart pounding in her ears as the sharp metal hovered near her chin.

Suddenly there was a soft cough followed by a pleasantly quiet voice, "Sephiroth...?"

Sephiroth turned from the pinned thief and looked down the hall towards the bedroom. He frowned and paused for a moment indecision. His cat eyes trained themselves on the girl under his foot once more. He released her. "Up."

She hastily got to her feet, eyeing his katana nervously.

"Move." He motioned to the right with his sword.

Yuffie followed the hallway right and saw the welcome sight of the front door. Sephiroth walked past her to open the door, then grabbed the back of her shirt and pushed her out of the house. When she looked back at him with confusion and hesitation, he arched a silver eyebrow. "Go. Don't come back."

"You're letting me go?" Yuffie asked uncertainly.

He rolled his eyes and replied cooly, "Obviously. You got lucky this time, so don't come back." He gave her a frightening half-smile. "I won't let you leave alive if you do." And then he shut the door.

Sephiroth walked back to the bedroom, re-sheathed his katana, placed it back on its wall mount, and turned off the lights. His bare feet padded around the bed quietly and he shut the window before slipping back under the covers. He found sleepy, red eyes watching him. A smile twitched the edges of his mouth and Sephiroth wrapped his arms around his dark-haired companion.

"What was all that noise?" Vincent said through a yawn.

"Just getting rid of a pest," Sephiroth replied. "Was that what woke you up?"

Vincent shook his head, "The window was open, I got cold."

_And I wasn't here to warm you up_, Sephiroth thought smugly, though he refrained from smirking.

"Was it a rat?"

Sephiroth closed his eyes and smiled against Vincent's dark hair. "Something like that."

-

Finally she had made if back to her car! Yuffie leaned against the cool glass of the window as she shoved her hand into her pocket for her keys. _Well, that certainly didn't go according to plan. _She was feeling just a little bitter. _No wonder they don't have any security... That damn crazy Sephiroth is all the security they need._ She fished around her pocket some more. That was strange, she could've sworn she had put her keys in this pocket. Her fingers searched her other pockets, but all came up empty.

"No," her whispered desperately. "No, no, no, no!" She checked and double checked. Her pockets were clean. "What if they...," she didn't even want to think of the possibility. What if they had fallen out of her pocket when Sephiroth had attacked her?

The cold night breeze blew and she shivered. What had possessed her to wear shorts and a tank top in autumn?

"Maybe I should go back...," Yuffie muttered half-heartedly, but Sephiroth's threat was still fresh in her mind. "It's probably not worth it..."

The wind picked up and her shivering with it. A traveling thief with a failed heist, a locked car, and no where to go. She didn't even know where the nearest motel was or where it could be, she was in the middle of a residential area after all...

Her gray eyes gazed into the warm-looking interior of the car longingly and she bumped her head against the window in frustration. Yuffie sighed. _Fuck._


End file.
